Buy the medal - and the cannonball that tore off his arm

[DavidDvorkin]

This is strange and disturbing

The first Victoria Cross to be won by a British Army soldier is to be auctioned in London later - along with the cannonball which blew off his arm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8636113.stm

The guy was apparently very heroic under fire and deserved the medal, but still. At least the arm itself is not included in the auction.

Interesting bit of info included in the article: "Victoria Cross medals are still cast from bronze taken from cannons captured from the Russians at Sebastopol." Given that I'm close to being a pacifist, I don't know why such military trivia fascinates me. Perhaps the remove of 150 years makes it sufficiently less real.

[Posteritatis]

1. In practice, at least, VCs tend to cluster towards museums eventually

So that's something at least. Turning the cannonball into a collector's item is a bit much - but then again, I don't find myself thinking that about a Greek helmet punctured at Thermopylae I saw at the ROM once, so I'll be spinning my wheels on where (and if) the line sits for awhile.

I have a book of all the VC citations up to the first one awarded in Iraq; even though I'm (mostly) a pacifist I find some of that stuff fascinating as well. It's stunning to think about what people see and do sometimes.

[pinboy3niner]

2. It should be in a museum, not up for sale to the highest bidder

That someone can buy it robs the medal of its meaning and is an insult to all who earned it. In the U.S., sale of the Medal of Honor is illegal.